By The Numbers: State Patty’s Day Crime Recap

From Friday to Sunday, there was a slight increase in total crime, arrests, DUIs, and underage citations compared to last year’s State Patty’s Day weekend.

Between the borough and campus police departments, there were 88 arrests and citations this year, compared to 86 last year. There were 15 people treated at Mount Nittany Medical Center for alcohol-related problems, up from 10 last year. The number of total crimes also went up by five, from 135 in 2014 to 140 in 2015.

“From a police activity perspective, there was nothing backwards or negative that occurred,” SCPD Chief Thomas King said.

We further broke down the crimes each department dealt with this weekend.

Penn State Police

University police responded to 22 calls related to violence, alcohol, and drugs on Saturday. The following statistics are from the campus police crime log.

There were 13 incidences reported in residence halls — four reports of possession of marijuana, five underage people taken to the hospital, one complaint of criminal mischief for damages to university property, one instance of public drunkenness, one report of trespassing, and one disorderly person.

Additionally, one student was stopped and found in possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia in Findlay Commons. And at Nittany Apartments, there was one instance of disorderly conduct and one student reported a person trespassing.

Elsewhere on campus, university police dealt with one DUI, three people observed highly intoxicated and transported to the hospital, three instances of public drunkenness, and one person received a disorderly conduct citation for urinating in public. Additionally, one person was cited for both public drunkenness and trespassing at the Earth and Energy Science Building.

Of the 17 incidents handled by campus police where the person was identified as a student or a visitor, 11 were students and six were visitors.

There were also three instances throughout the day where campus police assisted SCPD, and a handful of other calls unrelated to the day’s festivities.

State College Police

King said there is no comparison from State Patty’s this year to festivities in the past. “It was much calmer, and very manageable,” he said. “The THAW-event weekend we found to be very successful. For a big, special-event weekend, our activity was very reasonable, and not off the charts like it was in 2012 or 2011.”

While the total crimes for the weekend were slightly higher than last year, that number is down 61 percent from 2011.

Despite the increase in total crimes, the total number of cases and calls went down 11 and six percent, respectively form 2014.

King said the numbers for the last weekend in February in 2011 and 2012 were off the charts, even compared to other big event weekends.

“If you look at the call volume for this year, and compare it to other big event weekends we all embrace — home football weekends, Arts Festival, Blue-White weekend, graduation weekends — that call volume is no different, and maybe even a little lower than those kinds of weekends,” King said.